Last night, our webmaster repeated his invitation to David Martosko to explain his side of the story in the “Sock Puppet Shenanigans”. The post made on the Facebook “HumaneWatch” group read as follows:
Dear Mr. Martosko:
I recently contacted you regarding your claim that HSUS was involved in an incident of “sock puppetry” on the blog of a respected veterinarian, Dr. Patty Khuly.
Have you received my letter? I know that HumaneWatch.org mail servers were experiencing technical difficulties during that time, but fortunately, there’s a copy of it available at http://humanewatch.info/blog/?p=168 if you have not read it.
I am concerned that you have made intentionally false and defamatory claims about HSUS involvement in this matter, despite Dr. Khuly’s having informed you prior to 7/12 that she had no evidence that HSUS was responsible in any way.
I respectfully invite you to correct any erroneous statements you have made on your June 30th blog post, and if you are so inclined, to provide your perspective on the matter. I will be happy to publish your statement verbatim on the humanewatch.info website, completely unedited.
At the very least, I would appreciate the courtesy of a response, even if that response is simply “No comment”.
I look forward to your reply, and thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
John Doppler Schiff
Webmaster, HumaneWatch.info
The post was immediately deleted without comment, as most dissenting opinions on HumaneWatch’s Facebook group are. So much for courtesy! Or courage. Or integrity.
This was not unexpected, however. HumaneWatch has a history of ignoring any facts that run counter to their “we hate HSUS” message, and Martosko is quick to delete any post that doesn’t wave the pom-poms with sufficient enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter how respectfully phrased or truthful that post is:
HumaneWatch fears any information that might allow its readers to think for themselves.
Consider the case of Atlanta’s WSB-TV. The station ran a segment covering HSUS’ handling of the funds raised for Hurricane Katrina rescue operations, and it relied heavily on misinformation provided by CCF. When the station discovered it had been duped, it immediately pulled the footage of the broadcast and issued a correction.
CCF continued to willfully promote copies of the broadcast as “proof” of HSUS wrongdoing, without bothering to mention the correction. This prompted WSB-TV to send an
angry cease-and-desist letter demanding that CCF stop referencing the broadcast without referencing the correction.
CCF’s response? They fired off a lame, baseless accusation that the Humane Society
forged the letter. When WSB-TV demanded that YouTube pull all copies of the broadcast from its servers, CCF resorted to linking to an illegal copy hosted on a video sharing site in Iran. To this very day, HumaneWatch continues to hold up that invalidated report as “proof” of their arguments — without the correction that tells the rest of the story.
So, CCF fed false information to a reporter, and then used the resulting story to claim that the false information they fed the station was correct.
That’s just one example among many of CCF/HumaneWatch deception. If the facts are on HumaneWatch’s side, why do they resort to misinformation, sleazy tactics, and desperate attempts to stifle honest discussion?
They do it because the conclusions HumaneWatch presents do not stand up to scrutiny. They do it because
the truth is not a friend to HumaneWatch, and any facts that run counter to HumaneWatch propaganda must be suppressed or ignored.
Unfortunately for David Martosko, no matter how deeply he buries his head in the sand, the truth will not go away.
Neither will we.
